Cracking whips at Kroombit

Biloela, Queensland

Kroombit (17.08.2012): We set off at 8am from Emu Park for what would be our best day in Oz yet. We linked with the people going north today (everyone goes north apart from us). For the first time we had friends! What a great bunch too. There were 11 of us on the bus.. it was odd not to have our first choice of seats! We had a really fun driver too (Wings). There were two guys from Denmark on the bus, one Irish girl, four first year teachers from England (damn my career choice, they are planning to travel every summer, JEALOUS), and a couple in their 80s (crazy, anyone can travel right).

Our first stop was Rockhamptom (again) where we visited a zoo - we saw the same old: koalas, kangaroos, wombats.. it was a pretty nice zoo/wildlife park though. A great start to the day.

We then made for Kroombit, arriving at 1pm. We were quickly transformed into 'Ringers' (aka Asusie Cowboys), with hats and bandanas. Oh no I now have two hats to carry around!

What an amazing place - even though I am a vegetarian and maybe shouldn't like working cattle stations, I had a great time. It helped that we were with an amazing group of people.

After a BBQ lunch I headed for my first activity of the day - goat mustering on horseback. I haven't ridden for years and it was great to go horse-riding again. There were only three of us who went riding but we managed to muster around 100 goats back to the station. Awesome fun!

Whilst I was riding Adam went quad biking on a tour of the station. The cattle station is bigger than Wales so he only saw a small part of it on his 20km ride. He had an awesome time too. On his return we went lassoing. We were taught how to catch a goat and then had a competition to see who was fastest. We were rubbish! Later, after an appalling dinner (we will forgive it), we were shown how to crack a whip! What a stress reliever. We also got to have a go on a rodeo bull (not a real one) - I lasted to round two and Adam was out in one second.

I took part in the bush dancing too and then we played some drinking games by the fire. We slept in a log cabin - though we only got 2 hours sleep as we were having too much fun. Oh I don't want to leave. There are a few English girls working here who go out riding every day. If I didn't have a job to go back to I would definitely do this for a few months.